demanded that a recall election be held, advocating for anarchists and anti-parliamentary communists to vote for any anti-fascist candidate that expressed their support for the Republic, and declared that a general strike would be held in the event that the recall didn't happen. Subsequent issues of Regeneracion reaffirmed the USM's support for the Republic, stressing the legitimacy of the Republican government in their attempts to encourage intervention from democratic nations such as Britain and France, with Aldred criticising their continued neutrality. The USM was therefore setting aside its own principles of anti-electoralism, anti-capitalism and anti-statism in order to curry support for the Spanish Republic. The USM and APCF carried their dispute through the first year of the civil war, as they both competed for recognition as the official British representative of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). In the USM's bid for the position, Aldred took credit for the rise of British sympathies for the Republican faction, but the role was eventually assigned to the joint Bureau that had been established by the APCF and the Freedom Group around Emma Goldman, which allowed the USM to take a more critical approach to the events in Spain. An appeal from André Prudhommeaux for weapons, funding and soldiers to be sent to Spain was published in a September 1936 issue of Regeneracion, with Aldred organising the delegation of an "Anti-Parliamentary Column". The USM chose Ethel MacDonald to represent them in Spain and on 19 October she left Glasgow to make the trip through France to Barcelona, where she broadcast English language programs from the CNT's radio station. Reports from MacDonald that arrived back in Glasgow were in stark contrast to the USM's initial position of support for the Republican government, as she elaborated the role that the Spanish Revolution had to play in fighting back against the Nationalists, which she described as "the living demonstration of the power of the proletariat, the living truth of the force of direct action." Urged by MacDonald to emphasise workers' direct action over parliamentary inaction, by February 1937 the USM had changed its characterisation of the civil war from one of "democracy against fascism" to one of "social revolution against capitalism" and began to openly criticise the Republican government, even retroactively condemning the decision of CNT leaders including Federica Montseny to join the Republican government. By this time, the USM and APCF had once again increased